School for movie moguls

Wendy Preston

Do you love movies and wonder what you're going to do with your summer holidays? Why not make your own film?

The year five and six students who belong to the film club at Gladesville Public School loved their chance to make movies, but they agreed it was a big task. Their film club runs at lunchtimes and before school and this year 32 students were involved.

Dedicated ... students from Gladesville Public School film club have put their spare time to good use. Photo: Sahlan Hayes

GETTING STARTED

The Gladesville students start by brainstorming story ideas then begin to write a synopsis.

Writing the script comes next and this takes the most time – Stella Kochanowicz says this took "forever!" Then the real fun begins – planning the shoot, including gathering props and costumes and rehearsing.

Then comes filming, with all the inherent hitches. "It takes a lot of shoots to do one little scene," says Amy McKinnon. Paris Tsoukatos's group had to film many takes because "there was a lot of wind and the backdrop kept falling over".

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The students did their filming mostly at school at the weekend – so the set was quiet. Charlotte Aguaro's group still had trouble. "We had to film in the canteen and the alarm kept going off," she says.

Then comes the time-consuming task of editing, which is the least popular part for these students, and includes cutting scenes, sound-editing and titles.

BEING SCREENED

Last year Gladesville Public entered four films in the Flickerfest International Short Film Festival (flickerfest.com.au), on again at Bondi Pavilion next month.

The FlickerUp School Shorts Final of movies made by kids for kids was a new part of the festival, and two of the students' films were selected.

They have entered another four this year and are hoping some will be chosen from the 71 entries.

This time FlickerUp is on Saturday, January 14, at 2.30pm, and FlickerKids, films made for children aged six to eight, will also be screened next month.

It was thrilling for the Gladesville students to go to FlickerUp last year and see themselves and their work on the big screen. A highlight for Annabelle Corfield was "knowing you can make a film better than some adults". And even thought it's an enormous amount of work, many join up for the film club again in the next year. "It's fun most of the time," Angus McGarvey says, "except brainstorming."

GOING FURTHER

Dannielle Ward finished HSC this year after doing the Australian Film Television and Radio School's Real Filmmaking Workshop during the summer school holidays. The course included script-writing, directing and technical skills and how to shoot and edit using professional equipment.

Dannielle's interest in filmmaking started with editing friends' home movies, and her mother suggested it as a career. She then realised that "from year 9, I wanted to do anything in film".

She found the workshop "hands-on and so helpful".

With this as background, during HSC this year she created a major video work for both drama and English extension. She has now applied for the foundation diploma at the film school.

GET INVOLVED

So, what if you have a great idea or a film you think is good enough to show the public?

Trop Jr, part of Tropfest, is the world's largest short film festival for children, by children.

Filmmakers aged 15 and under can enter shorts of seven minutes or less which must include the Trop Jr signature item for 2012 – JUICE. Finalists' films will be screened at The Domain on Sunday, February 19, 2012, and will be eligible for prizes.